


Aftermath

by PlotWitch



Series: Suicide (I Understand) [2]
Category: Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter - Laurell K. Hamilton
Genre: F/M, Implied/Referenced Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-07-22
Updated: 2006-07-22
Packaged: 2019-03-15 21:05:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13621659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlotWitch/pseuds/PlotWitch
Summary: When Anita has done the unthinkable, Edward is there to pick up her own pieces. The only problem is, he’s still picking his up.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Magyar available: [Következmény](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13622025) by [Xaveri](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xaveri/pseuds/Xaveri)



They wouldn’t let her stay alone now. Not after she was finally released from the hospital. She stayed for three weeks. I think it was the longest stay she’d ever had in one. But then, this time there was no way for her to check out against the doctor’s orders.

If she had, they would have checked her into a psychiatric ward.

For her own protection.

I snort as I think this. There is no way for them to understand what drove Anita to the edge. There is no way to explain to them that her curiosity to my own scars, the possibility of needing revenge against me for murdering her triumvirate will keep her going long after any therapy or drug they attempt.

Anita may be a danger to herself sometimes, but for now, the only danger she posed was to me.

And possibly her family. I pull the cord to the blinds, letting them slap down the window as I lean back in my chair. It is new and barely broken in. the apartment is also new, and empty of anything to give it personality. The only things it contains is, again, my equipment for watching her.

And myself.

I don’t require much. A bed, some food. Necessities. Other than that, there is nothing, and I am able to gaze at the wall as my mind races.

I know that Anita is furious, whenever she has the energy to feel such things. I can see it on her face when she stares out the window in her new kitchen. Whatever human is staying with her on any given night can’t see it. But I can.

I can see.

I know exactly how she feels.

She’s moved back to the city. Her family forced her to break the lease on her house, to rent a town home inside the city limits and less than five miles from them. They want to keep her safe. They want to keep her under their thumbs. Every last one of them.

Except her brother.

He’s the one who’s staying with her tonight. Tall and on the thin side, almost completely opposite the opposite of Anita. But when he stays with her she doesn’t get so angry. And when he stays with her, I begin to think that maybe it would be safe for me to see her.

So I do. This one night, this one time, I think that maybe it would be okay for me to go over. Say hi, find out how she is doing first hand instead of anything I can snoop for. Maybe she will be happy to see me.

Most likely not. I killed her lovers. I almost killed her. I did fail her.

I am walking across the street when a strange car pulls up in front of her home. A man steps out and immediately reaches back in, rooting around on his passenger floor board for something. My hand is on my gun before I realize that it is only a delivery man.

He has two large bags of various sized white containers, and I smile. At least now I might be able to give her a peace offering and prevent her from strangling me when I knock on her door.

I smile at the man, ask him how much it is, explain in Ted’s voice that I’m a friend and why don’t I just pay for it and take it in. I tip him generously and he doesn’t think anything is odd about it. I do. I think that it’s foolish and stupid to let someone who didn’t order the food pay for it.

For all he knows I could be dumping poison into it as I walk the three steps to the door.

There is a doorbell, but I ignore it. Instead I rap my knuckles across it, both bags held in my left hand. I glance down quickly to make sure that the sleeves of my gray-green sweater cover my wrists. They hang to the middle of my hand and I nod sharply, satisfied that nothing will show.

Unless she asks.


	2. Chapter 2

I expect her to answer the door. When she doesn’t I find myself staring up into her brother’s face. He’s holding out a handful of bills, ready to take the bags from me. I stop him.

“I’m a friend of Anita’s. I was stopping by, so I got these for her,” I maneuver him easily. “Where do you want them?” I ask, trying not to laugh as he realizes that this stranger just walked past him and into his sister’s home.

He makes a vague gesture in the direction of where I know the kitchen is. I am lucky; it’s the only room I already know. His face is bewildered as I walk past him and into it, making myself at home by setting cartons on the counter and going through cabinets for dishes, glasses and silverware.

I know where they are, I have seen Anita as she prepares for dinner every night. I know which cabinets she goes to for what, and out of habit I pull out the coffee beans and set them to grind. I know at least that Anita will appreciate it, because Josh is standing behind me wrinkling his nose in distaste as I carefully measure water and pour it into the coffee maker.

But more than anything, this is all a very deliberate plan to make Josh assume that Anita and I are… intimate. Because it is the only way that I can think of to get him to leave me alone with her. Which in turn, will give her at least some measure of peace, because I will not stalk her every waking and sleeping moment like her family.

I smile, offer him a plate, ask him which carton who prefers. I make him comfortable with casual banter, acting for all purposes like anyone else. But underneath it all, I think to myself how much longer before Anita comes out? I even wonder where she is.

Ice cold fear wraps itself around my heart as I realize that Anita is by herself. And that she might conceivably have finished what she had started over a month ago. I clear my throat and look around pointedly.

“Do you want to start without Anita?” I ask, smiling like nothing is wrong, even though my heart is pounding so loudly that I can barely hear my own voice over it.

He laughs, and I force myself not to frown.

“She’s taking a bath,” he says as he starts to eat some lo mien noodles. He pauses, looking at me. I see his eyes narrow, and I mentally calculate how old he must be by now. Almost twenty. He is beginning to think what I have planned out.

“You can go tell her the food is here,” he says cautiously as he takes another bite.

I smile, harmless. “Sure, I’ll let her know. Save us something, okay?” I say as I get up and walk back out to the main living area.

I glance around, for a moment confused. Then I head towards the stairs. Anita might have preferred the first floor in her old house, but she would make the second floor a sanctuary in this place. She’d use it to stay as far away from her watchers as she could.

There are two doors on the second floor. One to my immediate right, the other further down. The first is wide open and shows an empty room. I shake my head and walk farther. The second door is cracked with only a sliver of light showing.

This would be her room, her domain. And her door is not closed, even with her brother in the house. They wouldn’t let her. Of course not, because she might kill herself.

Idiots.

I push the door open and step through, closing it silently behind me. There’s a second door, it’s closed completely. There is light shining form underneath it. She is behind that door, soaking in her water. It is probably as hot as her skin can take it. Maybe hotter.

I grab the door knob and turn it, pausing for a moment as thick wreathes of steam billow out. Then I wince.

“Josh, I thought I told you to stay the fuck out of here!” Anita yells.

I laugh and she jerks upright in the tub. There are enough bubbles to cover her, mostly, but I force my eyes to stare steadily into hers, ignoring the shadows beneath the filmy white suds. I smile, and this time it’s just me. No Ted, no acting. Just me.

I’m glad to see her.

She glares for a moment and then the anger seeps away to leave confusion. “Edward, what are you doing here?” she says.

My smile slips for a moment. She sounds so confused, so perplexed. Like she really can’t believe I would never come see her again. If only she knew that I had watched over her every day.

My mouth tilts up on one side. A painful half smile. “Don’t act so surprised,” I say as I step into the steam and close the door.

I settle myself onto the toilet seat, leaning back against the tank and folding my arms beneath my head. It’s in self defense. Now I can stare at the ceiling, instead of trying not to stare at her body. She’d kill me. I know she would. It also saves me from having to look at her face as she struggles to understand why I’m here.

She can’t see my own hurt, now.

“What are you doing here?” she says. A line I have already heard before, and one I still won’t answer.

“The food’s here,” I say instead. “Josh already started on it.”

I see her roll her eyes. “Great. There might be half a bite left,” she mutters as she slides one hand down between her legs and to the other end of the tub to pull on the stopper.

I wait for her to tell me to leave, sitting there watching her casually as the water drains out. But something has changed, and I am too late realizing it. She stands and steps out of the tub, water and suds streaming down her body.

I am caught, quite thoroughly. I can’t decide whether or not to turn my head and avert my eyes, or to watch her. Either one would be in and out of character at the same time, but neither would be what I want. Before I can figure out the appropriate movement she has a towel draped to the front of her body and is opening the door.

Bemused, I follow. Her hair is mostly dry, but the ends are wet and cling to her bare back. The very tips just brush the top curve of her buttocks, and I notice that there is a handful of bubbles clinging to one side.

My hands curl into fists and I shove them quietly down into my pockets. Safer there than in the open, else I might touch her. I think that it would upset her, despite her casual nudity now.

The soft nap of the towel is rubbing across her body, and she is dry before I realize it. Her back is still to me as she slides on a pair of loose gray cotton pants that she ties at the waist. She raises her arms to pull a shirt on and I get a glimpse of a soft, pale curve.

Abruptly I turn around, and begin studying her new home. I was wrong. I shouldn’t have come here tonight. Yet another mistake that I make when it comes to Anita Blake. Possibly one of the worst yet.

She turns to me and I notice that the shirt is almost form fitted, and a pale, pale green color that looks wonderful on her. But her eyes are tired; there are heavy circles under them. And there is still a bandage at one wrist, reminding me what has brought me here.

I step forward, treading silently over the carpet to her. I take her hand in mine, raise it to inspect the visible scar that is an angry red. My thumb brushes against it as I look at her, and she looks away. A half smile forms on my lips as I realize that she is ashamed.

I am so terribly afraid that I am overstepping the bounds of out friendship as I do it, but I can’t prevent the soft kiss I press to her wrist. “There’s nothing to be ashamed of, Anita. I promise you that,” I say softly as I let her hand go.

It drops to her side and she looks at me, eyes a little wide and more than a little wary. I smile again, forcing the usual emptiness into it. “We should go downstairs, or there won’t be anything left.”

My uncompromisingly logical advice.

I start to the door and only stop when I have it open. She is behind me, close, and one hand nips out to grab my arm. She holds it up and looks at me as she pushes the sleeve up. I don’t make any move to stop her; she already knows what’s hidden there.

She has the same set herself.

“Nothing to be ashamed of?” she almost whispers as her fingers carefully stroke the healed pink scars.

I stare at her fingers, soft and delicate compared to my own. They shouldn’t be touching the scars, shouldn’t be touching me. I inhale sharply as she presses her own mouth to my wrist; her eyes are angled up to look at me as she does.

I shake my head. “Nothing,” I say.

I don’t know what else to say, there isn’t anything left as she looks at me. Her eyes are tired, she’s too thin. And all I want to do is take her in my arms and kiss her, promise her that everything will be okay.

But I know it won’t, and I don’t make empty promises.

So instead I take my arm back and shake the sleeve down and don’t even wait to see if she follows me downstairs.


	3. Chapter 3

There is food left, it turns out, when I sit at the table in the kitchen again. I smile at Josh who offers me a hesitant smile back. I don’t blame him. I’m a complete stranger who just spent the last fifteen minutes with his sister, who, so far as he knows, is naked and in the bathtub.

I can almost hear the thoughts running through his mind. He is young and has just been confronted with the thought of his sister having sex. With him downstairs. For all he knows, Anita is sprawled across the bed in the trembling afterglow of unabashed lovemaking.

Would that it were true.

Instead, she is entering the kitchen minutes behind me, still in her green and gray ensemble, a towel draped about her shoulders that she is using to idly dry off the wet ends of her hair.

She glances at me and smiles at Josh. “Where’s mine?” she says, only moderately friendly.

I don’t expect more from her toward Josh. He’s her brother and it’s a well known fact that brothers and sisters are hardly ever nice to each other before they’re all thirty. Possibly forty. He picks up a carton and tosses it to her, which she catches easily from habit. After digging around in a drawer she produces two sets of chopsticks.

One she hands to me and gestures toward the table that is stacked with the anonymous white boxes. “Dig in, I ordered a lot.”

“I know,” I say with a smile. I should, I paid for it and carried it in. I take the chopsticks into hand and open one of the cartons, eating without really paying attention to what it is. I watch her from the corner of my eye as I eat, and am ready, unlike Josh, when she speaks.

“Why don’t you go see a movie, Josh?” she asks him.

He visibly squirms in his chair as he tries to think of an appropriate response. A response that doesn’t come right out and ask her if she wants him gone so she can have sex. He assumes that I won’t let her kill herself with him gone. And he is right. I won’t.

“Are you sure?” he asks, trailing off as he glances at me.

Anita follows his glance and looks at me. Our eyes meet, and she smiles at me. I don’t know what she’s thinking, but the smile is friendly, open.

“Just go,” she says, still smiling despite the hint of exasperation in her voice. “It’s not like I’m going to try and kill myself again. I’ll have plenty of better things to do.”

I nearly choke on the noodles in my mouth.

Josh does, his face turning red and the carton spilling sideways on the table. He stands quickly and rushes from the room muttering darkly under his breath. I am still relearning how to breathe. Anita’s comment has left me at a disadvantage, and I wonder what exactly she meant.

For some reason, I’m almost looking forward to it.

We watch each other as we listen to him gather his things. Then there’s the sound of a door opening and the closing hastily, and a lock turning. Moments later a car door, then the roar of an engine. I wonder who bought him the restored mustang that was parked on the street. The sound of its engine is easily recognizable.

I blink at Anita, realizing that I wasn’t paying perfect attention, and she puts her food down on the table.

“Nothing to be ashamed of,” she says softly and stands, leaving the room.

I wait a moment, comparing the alternatives to not following her. But I really have no choice. I have to follow her, I always have. And so I do, finding her curled on the couch in the living room. It’s not her white couch, the couch that I have been yelled at countless times for drinking coffee on.

This couch is a deep, dark blue and made of a suede-like material. It is plump, plush, and overstuffed. It makes her look so much smaller than she really is. It’s saying a lot, that, because Anita is small. But the force of her personality dominates her appearance so much that it’s easier to think of her as larger than life.

Not anymore though.

Not after finding her with a bloodied knife and gashed wrists.

I sit on the floor across from her, with the coffee table safe between us. Out of habit I adjust the sleeves of my sweater, making sure they cover my wrists, and then let them sag on top of my crossed legs. She isn’t looking at me, refuses to.

Instead she is picking at the bandage at her left wrist, worrying the fraying and damp edges as she avoids me. She pulls it at just enough that I can see the barely healed scar, still complete with ugly black stitches. It’s nearly enough to make me want to scratch my own wrists, the memory of the stitches and healing flesh itching around them.

“Why did you come here, Edward? Why tonight?” she asks in a soft, nearly dejected tone.

I smile crookedly. “To see you,” I answer.

There’s no other way around it, and it seems juvenile to hide it. There’s no reason I would come other than that. She’s not fit for hunting, and no one is targeting the Executioner when she just tried to kill herself. They all expect she’ll try again, and hope that she’ll do it right.

I wince as a slight shudder passes through me. She very nearly did do it right the first time, but she never could have expected me to show up. Otherwise she would be dead, and I would be watching over her grave instead of sitting four feet away from her.

“You never come just to see me,” she mutters.

This is new. This Anita is not the Anita I know, and as I realize it I’m shaken. Was her life truly so bad that her escape was a true necessity? Was it so terrible that she would break down under it? And in that moment I realize what she has already known.

That she did break.

And that the two monsters I killed to save her, were the ones most responsible for it.

I feel cold and weak as I realize it. And I can barely wonder, even for a fleeting second, if she will really recover. I don’t know if their deaths will be the release that she needs to be herself again, or if the only release for her will truly come with death.

But I make her a silent promise. If it’s death that she truly needs, I’ll give it to her. I’ll kill her quickly, and let her go with some dignity, to the peace that she hasn’t known in life.

But before that, I can try to give it to her. Yes, I can try to give her peace. And all of the other things that she wants, those too.

I stand, very conscious of the way I move as I push up from the floor. It seems as if all of my nerves are on alert as I move to carefully sit next to her, and then lay one hand on her shoulder to turn her to me.

“I’m sorry,” I say to her, clearly and very deliberately.

They are not words I say easily, and she knows this. I can see it in her eyes as she looks at me. Melting chocolate ready to run over as the tears build.

Of all of her friends and family, I know that none has ever taken the time to tell her that. To apologize for all of the times they ignored her, too wrapped up in their own lives and needs to pay attention to her, to help her when she needed it but couldn’t ask for help. I should know, I was one of them.

Almost still am, I think.

But no, not anymore. She looks at me for a moment, tears threatening, then she leans forward, burrowing into my chest. My arms come up and wrap around her, and I can feel her body heave and shake as she cries. I don’t think I have ever heard anyone cry this way, like their entire world has been torn away.

I don’t ever want to again. It nearly brings me to tears, the sharp pain in my heart as I realize what my benign neglect has put her through.

But there is nothing to be done now, and so I can only hold her as she cries on me, fingers clutching at sweater and skin underneath. Body wracked, curled into herself and on me.


	4. Chapter 4

It takes time for her to cry her tears out, and before it is over she is laying weary on my chest, fingers of one hand loosely wrapped around one wrist and the others enmeshed in my sweater. It isn’t uncomfortable, her body is very slight, and I can tell that she has lost too much weight.

Again I feel the urge to apologize, almost wanting to drop to my knees and beg forgiveness. I don’t. I only continue lightly stroking her hair, breathing in the scent of her soap, and trying to understand what is happening and where it is going.

She finally decides to speak, saying my name as her fingers slide down to my hand and slip under the cuff of my sleeve. “Edward?” she says as she pushes it up to reveal my scars.

I don’t answer. I know what is coming, and I don’t know what I will say. I don’t want to lie to her, but telling her the truth isn’t one of the best options. How hard it would be to tell her that she is the cause of my own scars.

It would damage her psyche, possibly being repair, if I don’t explain it to her in the right manner. And that would leave me no way to avoid telling her that I love her.

“What did you do?” she whispers.

Her fingers brush over my wrist, and I know that she is wondering why they are so jagged and rough, those scars. They aren’t the smooth and sleek match to the other wrist, not like her own.

I sigh.

“The handle of the knife slipped. It was covered in blood, and I lost my grip,” I finally say.

Lost my grip. Close enough to the whole episode. I had lost my entire grip, on sanity, on reality. On her. Even though I had never had her.

“Oh.”

A pause.

“Why’d you do it?”

She sounds so innocent, and so curious. I squirm a bit, trying to find a sensible way around the impasse I knew would happen, and she sits up, looking at me. Her face is pale and her eyes are red with crying, but the intelligent look in her eyes belies the youth she is presenting.

I stand and pace to the other side of the room, to the open doorway to the kitchen. My hand grasps the edge and I lean into, pushing into it, trying to push the question away. “You don’t want to know, Anita,” I say, my back to her.

“I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t want to know,” she shoots back.

I snort. “Why did you do it?” I say, trying to avoid the question.

I hear her shift on the couch and turn to look at her, leaning back against the wall, letting my sleeves fall back down over my wrists. She’s sitting there, leaning back on the couch and staring at me, an odd look on her face.

“I was overwhelmed,” she finally says in a voice so soft that I very nearly can’t hear it. “I was… I was being smothered by it all, I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t turn around or even think my own thoughts without one of them there.”

“So I tried to run away,” she whispers. “But you wouldn’t let me.”

I look at her face sharply. There is a faint note of accusation in her voice. But it fades as she continues, and my panic resides as I realize she is not holding me responsible for killing them. Or rather to say, she doesn’t blame me.

“I should thank you for doing it,” she goes on quietly, “as much as I want to I can’t. I want to, but I can’t.”

Silence. And then she asks again.

“Why did you do it, Edward?”

I sigh and look down, then back up meeting her eyes. There is no way around this, there is no way around the question or the hurt I’m about to cause her. And I don’t really want to run from it anymore. I want her to know, I want her to know how much I love her, how sorry I am that I never took a step towards her in anything other than friendship.

I want her to know that I would die for her.

My voice is a harsh and strangled whisper. “You,” I manage to get out, but even that is too much for me. I turn abruptly and walk away, to the front door and out into the night, quickly hiding in the darkness so that she can’t see the fear and pain on my face.

I hear the door open and close again as I stand in the puddle darkness, sense her more than hear her as she comes up behind me. Feel her hand, warm and light on my back as she stands there.

“What did I do that was so terrible?” she asks, and I want to scream with rage for the hurt I hear in her voice. For the lost look that is on her face when I turn to her.

“God, you didn’t do anything. I’m sorry, I didn’t say it right. I don’t know how to say it right, I’m sorry.”

The words were spilling out. Six years worth of words, and that one look on her face had been enough to break the dam that I had so carefully built to keep them from her. Six years, should have been seven, but I was slow to see what she was to me, slow to tell her, should have told her.

“I couldn’t tell you, Anita, didn’t dare. Tried to in Santa Fe, I tried to tell you, but you didn’t want to hear that from me. You didn’t want that from me, just from them, any of them.”

My hands are clenched into tight fists, knuckles almost white as I fight to keep from touching her. If I touch her, it’ll be too late, I’ll be undone and I won’t be able to not kiss her.

“I’ve loved you, god, for so long, Anita. Always have. Always fucking have,” I mutter harshly and step back form her to keep from touching her. “Couldn’t stop if I tried, you know that? Cause I have.”

I give a pained nearly hysterical laugh. She could kill me with a careless word, and here I am spilling all of my secrets to her without a care in the world.

“But you never wanted me,” I go on, trying to get a grip on myself, not for the first time. That edge of insanity is there, pressing against me, trying to wear me down, and I gasp as if someone has stabbed me. “You never wanted me, and all I want is you.”

Her eyes are dark and wide, I can barely see them in the night, but I can see well enough. Well enough to know that I’ve well and truly frightened her, and shook the core of her world. Edward, the untouchable, is telling her the truth.

God must be laughing right now.

“Anita,” I say, my voice tight and sad. “I’m sorry.” I take a step toward her, and she’s so very close. “It hurt, so much, so bad, I-I just wanted it to end. I wanted to stop hurting. Can’t you understand?”

The last is a desperate plea. And then I break.

My hands are on her face, her skin is so soft underneath them, the smell of her soap and her, god her, filling me. “Anita,” I say moments before I kiss her, too gently for wanting it for so long, but I don’t dare ask for more.

It’s enough that she doesn’t scream right there.

And then I step back, and realize what I have done. Her hand goes to her mouth, shock and surprise and fear all rolled into one on her face, and the confusion in her voice as she says, “Edward.”

It is too much. I turn and flee into the night.


	5. Chapter 5

It is past dawn when I finally return to her home. Her house is quiet and dark in the rising sun, and see that Josh’s mustang is again parked on the edge of the street. I stare at it and the house for a moment longer before heading through the finely misted dew to my own door.

It opens and closes silently, and I walk quietly to the stairs, then up them and to the bedroom. The bed is still unmade, the chair empty by the window. The table full of surveillance equipment.

I kick my boots off and sink onto the bed, grateful for the silence. A roll of my shoulders and my holster and Beretta fall to the mattress and I tug the sweater over my head and throw it on the floor, then sit there with my elbows on my knees staring at the scars. Hating myself for the weakness, for telling her.

I should have lied. Anything but the truth, she didn’t need that.

I hear a quiet click as the door downstairs opens and then closes again. And reach for the gun that is now lying at my left hip. I don’t bother to get up, whoever it is will find me soon enough. It was careless of me to leave the door unlocked, anyway.

I am never careless. Fitting that this time I should pay with my life.

I wait, gun in hand, slumped over as I watch the doorway. The shadow appears seconds after I hear the soft footsteps on thick carpet. The last thing I expect to see is Anita, but that is who steps around the edge of the doorway.

She’s wearing green flannel pants, a grey t-shirt, and blue fuzzy slippers, and looking more beautiful than anyone should look this early in the morning. And she is staring straight at me.

“You rented the house across the street from me,” she says.

I nod. What can I say? Telling her that I’m the legal definition of a stalker is probably not going to put me on her good side. Besides, I expect she has come to tell me to stay away from her. It would be fitting, she believes that she’s a monster and therefore must only be desirable to them.

I am only human. A man. Albeit a monstrous man, but only a man.

“You did at my last house, too. I checked.” She smiles faintly. “You’d be surprised what you can find out if the Executioner wants a favor.”

I don’t say anything, only put the gun back on the bed and watch her. Her arms are wrapped around her waist and she’s looking around the room curiously. Her eyes light upon the surveillance equipment and I see the lack of surprise, the expression that she expected it.

“How long?” she asks.

I stay quiet a moment. I know what she is asking. How long have I watched her. How long have a stalked her, been obsessed with her. “Five years,” I answer quietly.

She nods. “Can I?” she asks, gesturing to the chair. I shrug. She sits and swivels it to face me. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Would you have listened?”

She thinks for a moment, then shakes her head. “No. I wouldn’t have then. But I’m listening now.”

My heart stops beating for a moment, then kicks back into high gear. She’s listening now. And I have no clue what her hidden message is, because there’s more to her voice than the words. There’s pain and resignation and even an edge of hope. And there’s friendship, something she has always given me unstinting.

“What do you want me to tell you?”

She stares at me for a minute. “Where did you get the scar?” she asks, pointing to a long gash on my right bicep.

“Human servant. Four years ago, attacked me from behind.”

“And that one?” she asks, now pointing to a series of bullet holes on my left side.

“Firefight with Van Cleef’s guys, about a year ago.”

“Do you really love me?”

And there it is. Back to my folly of the night before, asking me to descend back into madness. To tell her the truth, to let her back inside the walls that I fought to put back up since I ran from her. But she knows that I can’t lie to her, she is waiting expectantly.

I nod.

“Why did you lie to me in Santa Fe?”

I smile faintly. “I didn’t.”

“Did too,” she says as she stands up and walks toward me so that she is standing a foot away. “You said that I was your soul mate. That’s true enough to you. But you also told me that you never had romantic thoughts about me.”

“And I don’t.”

A shadow crosses her face and I mentally kick myself. I am a fool, more over because I repeatedly say things in the worst possible way. I reach out and grab hold of her hand, and she looks at me.

“I don’t think of you romantically because I won’t let myself,” I say. “I’m not into masochism; I’m not going to torture myself by thinking about something that will never happen.”

“Who says it will never happen?” she asks.

My heart stops again and has an even harder time continuing its rhythm. I swallow and let go of her hand. Her arms wrap back around her waist and I am struck again by how thin she has become. How pale and small she is.

“You did, Anita. You never get involved with anyone you don’t love. And you don’t love me.”

She turns around and paces to the window, stopping and staring out of it at her own front yard. “Love isn’t so important, you know. It just fucks everything up. Look at you. You loved Donna and the kids. Where are they now?”

I snort. “I didn’t love her. The kids, yeah. Who wouldn’t love them? But I didn’t love Donna.”

“You nearly got killed keeping your family together.”

“I nearly got killed protecting what I had brought into my life,” I correct her.

She shrugs. “So maybe it didn’t fuck that up. It fucked me up. It fucked you up because of me. Everything I touch dies. What’s the point?”

“I didn’t die, Anita. I’m still here.”

I stand and follow her over to the window, standing just behind her, not touching her. Her shoulders are hunched and she looks like she’s trying to disappear. Like she wants to be invisible, or just not exist.

“It would be so easy,” she whispers, “if I loved you. You understand me, what I’m feeling and thinking, what I’m going through.”

“That’s me. Good, old reliable Edward,” I say.

She turns and looks up at me. “I don’t love you,” she says.


	6. Chapter 6

“I just want you to know that.”

I don’t know what she sees. Maybe she sees something that tells her I just want to die. I already knew that she didn’t love me. But hearing her say it, just like that, so matter of fact and without emotion… It kills something in me. I feel sick and start to turn away.

She stops me, one small cold hand on my side. It feels sharp and painful on my bare flesh, and I shiver at it. Her other hand is on my face, cupping my cheek and forcing me to look at her. She says I understand her, but she knows me too well. For all of the things I try and hide from her, she still knows me better than any other person on the planet.

“I said that I don’t love you, Edward. That doesn’t mean that I don’t care. I need, too,” she says to me. “I need someone who knows me. Who understands me, and doesn’t judge me. Someone who wants me, but not for what I have, or what I am. Just for who I am.”

She smiles, weary and sad. “You need someone, too. I can see it on your face, in your eyes. We could do that for each other.”

I raise my hand to hers, where she’s holding my cheek, and pull it away gently, kissing her palm. She’s offering everything I want, on a silver platter wrapped in green flannel. And telling her no will be the hardest thing that I ever do.

But I do it.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “It’s tempting, Anita. But we both know that it wouldn’t work that way. It wouldn’t be fair to either of us.”

The expression on her face doesn’t change. And she smiles again, even more drained than before.

“I know,” she says softly, and her face crumples. The tears begin to slip down her cheeks and I gather her to me. Her arms go around my waist and I hold her to me.

“I just wanted to fix something.”

I sigh. “You don’t have to fix me,” I say into her hair.

“Everything I touch gets fucked up, Edward, I just wanted something to be alright.”

“I’m alright, Anita. I really am,” I say, lying smoothly.

Inside I feel empty and dead. I’m holding the only woman I have ever loved in my arms. She’s offered herself to me, offered to let me into her life. And I have said no. because she doesn’t love me.

Beyond dead. I can feel a dull throbbing in my gut, a distant pain that threatens to break free and consume me. And the only thing I have that can keep it at bay is that she needs me right now.

But she really doesn’t. She doesn’t need me, or want me. She just wants someone to love her. It doesn’t have to be me. She needs a friend more than a lover. She doesn’t need me.

“Anita,” I say, when she runs out of tears or energy, I don’t which. “There’s nothing here to fix. There’s nothing wrong me, and there really isn’t much wrong with you.”

She looks up at me, skeptical. “I tried to kill myself, Edward. I’d be dead if you hadn’t shown up.”

“And the fact that you realize that is halfway to being fixed.”

Yeah. I paid attention to my shrink.

“If you love me, why don’t you want me?” Her voice is small and very young sounding.

“I didn’t say that I didn’t want you. I said that it wouldn’t be fair. You don’t really want me. You don’t need a relationship right now.” Every word is a stabbing pain to me, but I go on, hoping that what I tell her will help her tomorrow.

“You need a friend. Someone who can help you when you need it.” I stop her before she can say it; I know what she’s thinking. “It can’t be me, Anita. it has to be someone who really is just a friend. Someone who you can talk to when your therapist isn’t there.”

She wrinkles her nose. “I don’t like talking to him,” she says.

“You probably never will. But I promise, it’ll be worth it.”

I step back, releasing her, letting her go and hoping that she hurries. She doesn’t, but I don’t really expect her to. She walks to the door and stops. Turns to me.

“I really don’t know what I’d do without you, Edward.”

I smile, and she leaves. I hear the door open and close, turn and look out the window. I wait until she is safely in her own house before I draw the blinds on the window and cast the room into semi-darkness. I feel safer in it, and I don’t need to look as I pick my gun up and sit down on the bed again.

I drop the clip, holding it up and looking at it. Full. There’s a loud click as I slide it back in and pull the slide, sending a round into the chamber. The safety is off, and I look at it for a minute.

It looks cool, lovely and deadly, peaceful there in my hand. Peaceful.

And I think, maybe I can have a little of it, as I raise it to my head.


End file.
